2020.09.18 | By Gregory Nagy §0. This essay, overtly about the Odyssey of “Homer,” is a playful experiment. But it is based on a draft of a short essay that is quite serious in intent. I am about to submit for online publication a text of that essay to a colleague whose work on comparative epic I very much admire - and whose identity I cannot yet reveal because the… Read more
2018.08.29 | By Gregory Nagy §0. The anguish of a replicant named Roy in the story of Blade Runner is only one example of the unseasonality suffered by artificial humans. I explore another example here, where a replicant named Rachael experiences the shock of being told that she is not human. Unlike Roy, who knew all along that he was not human, Rachael never knew. Once she is told that… Read more
2015.04.10 | By Gregory Nagy I propose here to revisit one of my all-time favorite passages in Homeric poetry. This passage is a kind of micro-epic, basically ten verses in length, and we find it embedded in the narrative of Odyssey 8. We see in that part of the Odyssey what can best be described as paraphrases of three songs performed by Demodokos, the blind singer of the Phaeacians. The micro-epic… Read more
